Search v1.0

Search is a game I wrote a few years ago, just to see if I could. I had quite a few ideas of things that I wanted to do with a game if I ever got around to writing one, and this was sort of an experiment to see which of those ideas were really feasible. I also wanted to make the code efficient enough so that the game would run on an old computer like the one I was using. As a college student, I just couldn't afford to replace my 386sx-16.

This program is the result. It was written in Turbo Pascal and took about 4 weeks of my free time between college classes. It was a very educational experience, but more than that it was an absolutely wonderful way to spend my free time. I had so much fun writing it, and I would encourage anyone who is thinking about writing a computer game to just go for it.

The most surprising thing that I learned for this and later games I've written is how difficult the art and creativity is. Programming a game is extremely simple; any feature you want to add to the game is just a simple exercise in problem solving. The tough part however, is coming up with a plot, NPCs, personalities, story lines, and drawing the billions of icons, town maps, and country maps. It's amazing how much time you can spend when you let yourself get lost in the 'creative' side of game programming.

This really shouldn't have been quite so surprising. I've long known that the most entertaining games to play were not the ones with the most fancy user interface. Instead, the games that you get lost in are the ones that have the best character development.

My next project: Search 2000